Insomnia after quitting weed is a recognized symptom of cannabis withdrawal. In a 50-day study of 18 users, withdrawal began on days 1 to 3, peaked on days 2 to 6 and most effects, sleep problems included, lasted 4 to 14 days. Across 47 studies and 23,518 people, 47% of regular users had a cannabis withdrawal syndrome, ranging from 17% in population samples to 87% in inpatient ones. In sleep labs, heavy users who had just stopped slept less and had less deep sleep than controls, and in a 13-night inpatient study of users with earlier sleep trouble, total sleep time and sleep efficiency were still falling. It is not known how much of that was poor sleep before quitting. Sleep trouble that outlasts a few weeks or comes with low mood is worth taking to a doctor.
Quitting weed after months or years of regular use often comes with a stretch of nights that go badly. People lie awake, wake at 3 a.m., have intense dreams and feel worse for it the next day. Some conclude that they need cannabis to sleep and go back to it. The research says something more useful: a good share of regular users have a withdrawal syndrome, sleep trouble is a standard part of it, and the timeline is usually measured in days and weeks, not months. It also says what is not known.
Insomnia after quitting weed is a documented withdrawal symptom
The first controlled demonstration came from a small outpatient study. Twelve daily marijuana smokers were assessed for 16 days in a row. They smoked as usual for five days, abstained for three, smoked again for five and abstained for three more. A summary measure of withdrawal discomfort rose in both abstinence phases and fell back when smoking resumed. Craving, decreased appetite, sleep difficulty and weight loss changed reliably across the phases. Aggression, anger, irritability, restlessness and strange dreams rose significantly in one of the two abstinence phases. People who knew the participants confirmed the reports. The authors compared the size and type of the effects with nicotine withdrawal.
Budney AJ, Hughes JR, Moore BA, Novy PL. Marijuana abstinence effects in marijuana smokers maintained in their home environment. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2001. PMID 11576029
How common is it? A systematic review and meta-analysis pooled 47 studies with 23,518 regular users of cannabis (average age 29.9). The pooled prevalence of cannabis withdrawal syndrome was 47% (95% confidence interval 41% to 52%), and the studies disagreed a lot with each other. The settings explain much of that: 17% in population-based samples, 54% in outpatient treatment samples and 87% in inpatient samples. Daily use was associated with a higher prevalence, and so was using tobacco or other substances at the same time. Remember what the number measures. It is the share with the whole syndrome, in which sleep trouble is one symptom among several, and not the share with insomnia.
Bahji A, Stephenson C, Tyo R, Hawken ER, Seitz DP. Prevalence of Cannabis Withdrawal Symptoms Among People With Regular or Dependent Use of Cannabinoids: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Netw Open 2020. PMID 32271390
How long does insomnia last after quitting weed?
The clearest timeline comes from a 50-day outpatient study of 18 marijuana users, followed by a comparison with 12 former users. After five days of smoking as usual, the users abstained for 45 days. Compared with the baseline phase, a withdrawal pattern appeared for aggression, anger, anxiety, decreased appetite, weight loss, irritability, restlessness, shakiness, stomach pain and sleep problems. Onset typically came on days 1 to 3, the peak on days 2 to 6, and most effects lasted 4 to 14 days. The authors compared the size and course of these effects with tobacco and other withdrawal syndromes.
Budney AJ, Moore BA, Vandrey RG, Hughes JR. The time course and significance of cannabis withdrawal. J Abnorm Psychol 2003. PMID 12943018
That is the tidy answer: a week of the worst of it, a second week of fading. It comes from 18 people who were not in a hospital, and it describes averages. A small inpatient study with sleep recordings suggests that not everyone follows the average. It recorded 18 heavy users who had reported sleep disturbances during earlier abstinence, living on a unit, on nights 1, 2, 7, 8 and 13 after they stopped, so it describes people who already had trouble and not every user. Across that period, total sleep time, sleep efficiency and the amount of REM sleep declined, while time awake after falling asleep and periodic limb movements increased. Across the recorded nights, those lab measures trended the wrong way. The years and the amount of use predicted more limb movements.
Bolla KI, Lesage SR, Gamaldo CE, Neubauer DN, Wang NY, Funderburk FR, Allen RP, David PM, Cadet JL. Polysomnogram changes in marijuana users who report sleep disturbances during prior abstinence. Sleep Med 2010. PMID 20685163
Put side by side, the two studies do not contradict each other as much as they seem to. One asks people how they feel, the other counts minutes of sleep in a lab. Feeling better by the second week while the recorded sleep is still thin is entirely possible, and neither study can say which is more important.
What a sleep lab saw in people who had just stopped
An earlier study from the same group used polysomnography, the full overnight lab recording, on 17 heavy marijuana users in the first two nights after they stopped, and compared them with 14 drug-free controls (ages 18 to 30, no other drug use). On both nights, the users had lower total sleep time and less slow-wave sleep. On the second night they also had worse sleep efficiency, a longer time to fall asleep and a shorter time to the first REM period. The users did not sleep better after the adaptation night, which would have been the expectation. Withdrawal symptoms, craving and depression did not appear to explain the differences. Sleep continuity was also relatively worse on the second night than on the first, which fits the idea that the first days are the hardest and not just the very first night.
Bolla KI, Lesage SR, Gamaldo CE, Neubauer DN, Funderburk FR, Cadet JL, David PM, Verdejo-Garcia A, Benbrook AR. Sleep disturbance in heavy marijuana users. Sleep 2008. PMID 18548836
The authors were careful about what this cannot show. The study cannot say how much of the difference was there before abstinence, because the lab recordings began after the users stopped. This question matters more than it might seem. The authors of the later study note that users with sleep problems may go back to cannabis to improve their sleep, so poor sleep can be a reason for using as well as a result of stopping. A systematic review of 36 publications reached the same cautious place: sleep was frequently interrupted during cannabis withdrawal, but the mechanisms are unclear, and methodological problems in most of the studies prevent firm conclusions about which parts of sleep are affected. Sleep trouble in cannabis withdrawal is well documented and poorly explained.
Gates P, Albertella L, Copeland J. Cannabis withdrawal and sleep: A systematic review of human studies. Subst Abus 2016. PMID 25893849
Strange dreams, restless legs and what else shows up
Two details in these studies stand out. Strange dreams increased in the controlled abstinence study, and vivid dreams have general causes of their own. The sleep recordings also showed more periodic limb movements, the repetitive leg jerks during sleep, the longer and heavier the use had been. That is a different thing from the daytime urge to move the legs, but the two are related.
None of these studies tested a sleep treatment in withdrawal, so there is no tested set of tips to offer. What the sleep lab authors did suggest is that treating sleep disturbance may be a worthwhile target in managing cannabis use disorders, because poor sleep could contribute to relapse.
What the numbers add up to
Put together, the studies say four things. Sleep trouble is a regular part of cannabis withdrawal, and it is confirmed by people who observed participants as well as by the participants themselves. In outpatients the worst of it comes in the first week and most effects fade within two. In an inpatient lab study of heavy users with a history of sleep trouble in abstinence, the sleep measures kept getting worse over 13 nights. And no one knows how much of that disturbance came before quitting, which is why a single number for "how long it lasts" would be false precision.
When to look beyond withdrawal
The studies give you a rough yardstick. If bad nights are fading over the first one to two weeks, that fits the typical course. If they are not, or if they get worse, two other explanations deserve a look. One is an insomnia that was there before, which cannabis may have been covering. What causes insomnia goes through the usual causes, and writing down your pattern first helps the conversation with a doctor. The other is mood. Anxiety is part of the withdrawal pattern, and low mood can keep people awake in its own right.
If low mood tips into hopelessness or thoughts of harming yourself, do not wait it out. In the US you can call or text 988 at any hour. Elsewhere, use your local crisis line or emergency number.
A sleep diary kept through the first weeks is more reliable than memory on a bad day: bedtime, roughly when you fell asleep, wake-ups, and a score for how you felt in the morning. It shows whether the trend is going up, and it gives a doctor something to work with. Routines that help ordinary insomnia are described in Sleep hygiene and insomnia, with the caveat that they were not tested in withdrawal in these studies.
Frequently asked questions
In a 50-day study of 18 marijuana users, withdrawal effects, including sleep problems, typically began on days 1 to 3, peaked on days 2 to 6 and mostly lasted 4 to 14 days. That is a group average from a small study. In an inpatient study of 18 heavy users who had reported sleep problems during earlier abstinence, sleep measures kept getting worse across the 13 nights recorded, so people with that history may take longer.
Yes. In a controlled study of 12 daily smokers who stopped on two occasions, sleep difficulty reliably worsened during both abstinence phases and returned to baseline when they resumed smoking, along with craving, decreased appetite and weight loss. Collateral observers confirmed the reports.
A meta-analysis of 47 studies with 23,518 regular users found a pooled prevalence of 47% (95% confidence interval 41% to 52%). It was 17% in population-based samples, 54% in outpatient samples and 87% in inpatient samples. Daily use, concurrent tobacco use and other substance use disorders went with a higher prevalence. The figure is for the whole syndrome, not for insomnia alone.
Strange dreams increased in one of the two abstinence phases of a controlled study of daily marijuana smokers. The reports are consistent but the studies describe the pattern more than the cause, and a systematic review found the mechanisms of sleep disruption in cannabis withdrawal remain unclear.
If poor sleep continues well beyond the first two weeks, if daytime function suffers, or if the sleeplessness comes with low mood, anxiety or hopelessness, take it to a doctor. Sleep problems that were there before cannabis use, and depression, can look the same as withdrawal.
SleepTrace is a wellness app, not a medical device. This article is general information, not medical advice. If your symptoms are frequent, severe or worrying, please talk to a doctor.
Insomnia after quitting usually fades within a few weeks, according to the studies in the article. SleepTrace gives you a dated record of how your nights go, including estimated REM. It cannot treat withdrawal and does not hear dreams; tracking is free, so you can watch the trend instead of judging single nights.
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